Market Stats

According to Gartner Q1 2016 global smartphone sales total 349 million units-- a 3.9% Y-o-Y increase driven by low-cost smartphone demand in emerging markets and 4G smartphone promotions by many telcos around the world.

Smartphones make 78% of overall Q1 2016 mobile phone sales.

"In a slowing smartphone market where large vendors are experiencing growth saturation, emerging brands are disrupting existing brands' long-standing business models to increase their share," the analyst says. "With such changing smartphone market dynamics, Chinese brands are emerging as the new top global brands. Two Chinese brands ranked within the top five worldwide smartphone vendors in Q1 2015, and represented 11% of the market. In Q1 2016, there were three Chinese brands-- Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi-- and they achieved 17% of the market."

Gartner reports global smartphone sales will show single-digit growth of 7% in 2016-- a first marking an end to the era of double-digit smartphone growth according to the analyst.

Smartphone sales for 2016 are forecast to reach 1.5 billion units, while total mobile phone sales are set to reach 1.9bn. Also showing barely positive results is the combined device (PC, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) market, as global shipments are expected to grow by just 0.6% to 2.4bn units in 2016, with end-user spending declining by -1.6%.

"Historically, worsening economic conditions had negligible impact on smartphone sales and spend, but this is no longer the case," Gartner remarks. "China and N America smartphone sales are on pace to be flat in 2016, exhibiting 0.7% and 0.4% growth respectively."

According to IDC 2015 is "likely" to be the last year of double-digit global smartphone growth-- whereas 2015 shipments total 1.44 billion units with 10.4% growth, 2016 shipments are forecast to increase by just 5.7% to 1.5bn.

Such a single-digit growth rate is expected to continue over the next 4 years, as the analyst forecasts volumes will grow to 1.92bn in 2020. In the meantime global ASPs will continue to drop (from $295 in 2015 to $237 in 2020), the result of volumes shifting to emerging markets such as MEA, India, Indonesia and S.E. Asia.

As smartphone demand in mature markets slows down Counterpoint Research says MEA is "the next frontier and key geography for smartphone growth," as Q3 2015 shipments are up by 31% Y-o-Y.

Such a growth is nearly 3x the global rate.

"This region is not only huge geographically but is also quite diverse i.e. home to some of the most underpenetrated emerging as well as some richer mobile phone markets in the world," the analyst continues.

According to the analyst Samsung currently dominates MEA thanks to a "stronger pan-MEA distribution network," even if the S. Korean giant is losing market share (Q3 2015 share totals 41.1%, down from 49.8% in Q3 2014). Huawei takes second place with 9.3% market share, followed by Africa-based Tecno taking over 8.2% market share through "competitive mid-tier smartphones."

According to Flurry Insights iDevices account for 49.1% of mobile device activations during the 2015 holiday season, at least as based on the 780000 apps tracked by the mobile analytics firm.

The figure is down from the 51.3% seen in 2014, but still shows Apple as a clear winner-- in comparison 2nd placing Samsung claims 19.8% share, up from 17.7% in 2014 thanks to strong Galaxy Grand Prime, Core Prime and S6 sales. Meanwhile Microsoft Lumia loses share as it drops from 5.8% to 2%, and LG follows at 1.7%.

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